A Childhood with Nick Markakis
I realize that the majority of posts I’ve made in my relatively brief blogging career have relied on outrageous fiction as a crutch. My next post is going to be about a dragon who can speak English and flies around fighting crime in New York City. But for now, I’ll stick with the facts, and assure you that everything that follows here is completely true.
I spent part of my childhood in Woodstock, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. My parents made me join the Cub Scouts, and it was there that I met some kid named Nick Markakis.
Nick loved to talk. All the time. The kid would not shut up. Most of our conversations were dominated by his love of “G-LOC: Air Battle,” a Sega Genesis game. Was it worthy of his hype? Hard to say, because he would never let me play the damned game. He would sit there in front of the television, answering my requests to play with dissertations on how realistic the game was. Since, you know, ten-year-olds are authorities on modern air warfare.
His dad worked at the Lockheed facility in nearby Marietta. I only remember this because he uttered the sentence, “my dad works at Lockheed,” no less than 750 times. His mom often helped out with den activities, and was a very nice person. I was invited to his birthday party at Whitewater, a nearby water park. We packed into their car, and for the next half-hour, Nick interrupted all my attempts at conversation with anecdotes about how his dad worked at Lockheed. At one point, his mother turned to the back seat, looked at me, and said, “sorry.” Nick didn’t seem to notice. His dad worked at Lockheed.
At the water park, he chose to ride the scariest ride. The rest of us didn’t have the guts. So we stood near the ride’s exit, and waited for him to ascend the long line and fall down the slide. And waited. And waited. Forty-five minutes passed. Finally, Nick slid down the enormous slide. He calmly swam out of the water, walked up to me, and called me a wussy. That, right there, is the definitive Nick Markakis moment.
Things got ugly between Nick and I one night. Our Cub Scout pack held its annual Pinewood Derby. We had spent countless obsessed hours making these cars with our fathers. I can’t remember for sure, but I’m willing to wager ten bucks that he spouted some nonsense about how his dad had helped him make his car as aerodynamic as possible. His dad worked at Lockheed. I do remember that he was awfully confident in his car’s chances.
The pack leader had set up a bracket, and I was up against Nick in the first round. We set our cars on the track and sent them rolling. And I killed him. Just completely destroyed him. It was shameful. His car is probably still rolling down the track as I type this. His dad worked at Lockheed.
Nick was visibly unhappy. My dad noticed this, and urged me to go over and congratulate him on a good race. So I did. He responded with, “shut up, you just want to win, you don’t care, you’re glad I lost!” His dad worked at Lockheed. His voice began to quiver, and he stomped off.
Nick and I weren’t really close friends, so when the Cub Scout dens were re-organized at the end of the year, we didn’t see each other much anymore.
These stories aren’t exactly flattering. But to be honest, Nick was a fun kid to hang out with. A couple of years ago, I read that he got some job in Baltimore playing outfield for some team called the “Orioles.” It’s funny how life goes. If I knew as a ten-year-old that I’d be a blogger on the Internet, and that he ended up finding work in some low-paying gig, I would have rubbed it in his face. He never would have heard the end of it. But since then, I’ve been conditioned by life never to judge other people. Hey, he found a job doing what he loves. I can’t take that away from him.
His dad worked at Lockheed.
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his career nice to see you here
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